Sunday, 18 July 2010

Prosal Excuses

Putting pen on paper is a big deal for a writer simply because you don't want to end up writing crap.

Well, crap in bad writing that makes the readers go "Ha Ha".

I chance upon these examples of bad writing and they are really quite good (bad, that is).

In fact right up there with "It was a dark and stormy night".

Have I ever made these similar foibles of my own? I don't doubt it at all.

Guilty as charged.

The "thirsty gerbil and giant water bottle" is probably the author's running away from a more cliched prose. "Compiling dust just like a writer's with the fear of publishing his writings" kind of prose.

(I must say that the thirsty gerbil bit was quite vivid a description though. So point made actually.)

At least these authors - bad opening aside - have their work published unlike some people I (ahem) personally know.

As such, I have resolved to put pen on paper no matter how bad my opening lines are.

I'm rereading Stephen King's On Writing just to get me inspired again and I must say that good writing wil grow on you.

In my personal library, you'll find some books in near-soiled condition while others still minty (this is a comic-related term, for those not familiar, meaning as good as from a book rack).

You know exactly then which are the good ones and what aren't.

Alas, time is so short these days that reading has become a chore.

And you just can't write if you don't read.

Its a fact of life that's simply bummer of an obstacle.

Is it, or is it another one of the those "fearful of bad writing" excuse?

The mentioned Gerbils.


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